Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Nick, I feel for you. Here in Minnesota, we've lucked out -- we got our first LRT line built, and not only has it greatly exceeded ridership expectations, but the business along the route love it.

Families use it to come to down Minneapolis on the weekends: Unless you have a HUGE family, transit tickets are still cheaper than parking. And several restaurants have noticed an uptick in family clientele, even the "sports bar/meat market" types such as Old Chicago (the OC nearest the Warehouse District stop has invested in crayons and high chairs to cater to its new clientele). And since it goes to the Mall of America via the airport, it's very handy for travelers wanting to get to a hotel or to just kill some time before their next flight.

This tinfoil-hat "technology" is older technology than light rail, has never had one success anywhere, and does nothing but derail funding and research from real mass transit options. The PRT folks here in Minneapolis basically get together in diminishing numbers and bitch about how Metro Transit deliberately "underestimated" the projected numbers of LRT riders, in order to "manufacture" a success. Considering that the LRT is mostly packed all the time now, I guess the "underestimate" meant people not pressed against the windows.